March, 2009

Madness Takes Its' Toll (Please Have Exact Change)

I don't recall the exact wording and numbers, but George Carlin did a routine about things you lose on Earth that are returned to you in heaven—72 pairs of sunglasses, eight sets of keys, 361 ballpoint pens and 497 single, mismatched socks.

"Pink."
"Multi-color polka dots."
"Lavender."
"Lilac?"
"Same thing, put it on the pile."
"Green, yellow, blue, different blue, another blue—"

I remember hearing a theory that the heat of the dryer coupled with the centrifugal force of the rotating drum sends a sock into a parallel dimension. Years from now, NASA will send a craft into another universe—and they'll run smack into a cloud of single, mismatched socks. (Probably with George Carlin sitting in the middle of it.)

From the time I started doing my own laundry, I had a different idea. There's a sock monster built into every dryer, and every so often it requires a sacrifice. (I swear I heard the dryer burp. Of course, that was in college, right after the 60s…)

"Oh, these are adorable."
"They're all adorable, dang it."

I love Charlie. She's intelligent, well read, caring, compassionate, witty, just a shade snarky sometimes—and willing to help at the drop of a hat. If Allie turns out even remotely like big sister/Auntie Charlie, I'll be thrilled.

"Teal, turquoise, China blue, sea-foam green, orange—"
"That's orange?"
"I think it used to be yellow and got mixed up with a red load."
"That's—uh—"
"Yeah, a pretty nausea-inducing color. I vote we ditch one or both, whatever we end up with."
"Agreed."

Before Allie put in an appearance, Charlie and her moms were long in the habit of spending weekends with us. Mother loved having all of "her girls" in residence, Ducky made jokes about being the lone navigator in a sea of estrogen, we frequently cooked dinner as a committee—and Lily and Ev were more than happy to kick the new parents out of the house and babysit until Saturday night became Sunday morning. (We weren't stupid. We left.)

"White, white, white, Abby, white, Abby, white—"
"Off-white, bright white, creamy white, white with lace, white without lace—"
"The white pile is getting pretty high..."
"I know, I know…and I state categorically there isn't a pair among them!"

So here she was, blowing off a Saturday morning helping me… sort socks.

Like so many other things, baby socks are too damned cute. We had gotten more stuff from more people than I could imagine but baby socks were the top of the list. Once word got out that Ducky was finally married and oh, my gosh going to be a father, there wasn't a day for the three months before Allie was born and the three months after that there wasn't a baby shower, a gift left on his desk or a surprise appearing in the mail. Mother found the one credit card Ducky still kept in her name and went bananas online (with help from Charlie—who didn't realize Mother shouldn't be using a credit card that was, hello, in her name—it was hers, so she saw nothing wrong) and we ended up with everything from a convertible crib to a Little Lord Fauntleroy sailor suit. Ducky shook his head and sighed; all the money is in his name, so it was like we were buying gifts for ourselves—but, hey, she had fun. (He returned the sailor suit even before we knew Allie was an Alexandra and not an Alexander. He saw no reason to traumatize an innocent child.)

But baby socks were "the" gift item. Infant car seat from Abby—half a dozen packs of socks tucked in the box. (Abby's, at least, were easy to match. Allie's birth was just in time for all the Halloween-themed clothes to hit the stores, which was as close to baby goth as Abby could manage.) Ziva showed a surprising crafty side—artsy-crafty, not sneaky-crafty. She took the socks and turned them into flowers, used pipe cleaners to attach them to green dowels and gave us a vase full of baby socks in a rainbow of colors. Some day I'll ask where she learned it. The crib attachment that played "Hush, Little Baby" (Uncle Jethro) came with a dozen "onesies" (whoever came up with those is a bloody genius) and a box of the frilliest, floofiest girly-girl socks ever made. Baby socks came from everyone and everywhere. Literally from around the globe: pink, yellow, pale green, lilac, salmon—with lace, without lace, cotton, poly-blend, hand knitted, every shade of white, stripes, polka dots, squiggly lines, tie-dyed (Ray and Barb strike again)—eighty billion socks, piles of every color and dozens almost identical in each pile but just enough different that they weren't a matched set.

"Okay…these two are almost right, but the ribbing on the first one is thinner."
"The pink is the same on these, but the lace on the first one is scalloped and the second one is a straight band."
"These are the same—but different sizes. One's a half-inch longer at the top."
"Are you sure? Maybe one just got stretched…"

Health-Tex pink socks are just a hair darker than Carters', Gerber and Target are identical colors but the ribbing is totally different—you can go out of your freaking mind with this.

"Why is it so important?" Ducky asked at one point. "From a distance, they look identical, no one will notice."

I gave him a look. I am her mother and I will notice. He took the hint and retreated to the kitchen to confer with Lily and Ev about dinner.

"You know…" Charlie said slowly, "She's almost outgrown these socks anyway…"

"Don't remind me," I groaned.

"All of my dolls had real clothing," she offered.

"As opposed to unreal?"

"No," she said patiently. "As opposed to the schlock the doll manufacturer put on the doll before entombing it in a cardboard coffin with a cellophane window. My dolls all wore 'baby' clothing—my mother saved it all from when I was Alexandra's age."

"Good idea for what she's outgrown. But what about—" I gestured to the piles of pink and lavender and blue and oh, dear heavens, white socks that were still mateless.

She glanced around and leaned over. "My vote," she whispered, "Is shove them all in a storage bin, put it at the back of the closet until she starts playing with dolls—and you and I take a drive to Costco or Sam's Club and buy eight or ten bags of socks all the same color all the same manufacturer. You may still lose a sock in the dryer, you may have an odd number at the end of the week—but they'll always pair up."

Now, why didn't I think of that?

See, I'm still here.

I'm still packing.
I still have no set place to land.
And my daughter, inspiration for so many of these tales, is getting married tomorrow.

The title of this chapter is all too appropriate.

And I am embarrassed to admit how many years it took me to come up with "buy all white socks from Costco" to simplify my life.